BCS 505: Perceptual and Motor Systems

Spring 2007

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Thought questions

Location

Meliora 269

Instructor

David Knill
Meliora 275
275-4597

Office Hours: T 1:00-2:00 PM

Reading Material

There is no text for the class. Reading material will be placed in the CVS mail room or posted on the class website.

Reading

Reading for the course will include book chapters and research articles from the vision literature. Copies of reading material will be handed out in class or posted on the course web site.

Requirements

Students are required to attend all lectures and are expected to have done the reading for the class.

2 - 3 thought questions on the readings will be handed out prior to each class. Students are expected to write one paragraph on each thought question and submit them to me electronically prior to the class. Students should bring printouts of their thought questions to the class.

Answers will be graded on a simple contract basis – 2 points for satisfactory answer (a reasonably coherent answer to the question that reflects a thoughtful analysis of the reading), 1 point for turning in an answer that falls short of being satisfactory and 0 points for not turning in an answer or turning in an answer that reflects not having done the reading.

Student Questions

Students should submit two or more questions on the reading prior to the class. Questions can be clarification questions, questions about background information relevant to the reading, questions that extend the concepts in the reading to vision in the real world or questions that challenge the concepts, methods or interpretations given in the readings.

Students will receive 2 points for turning in questions prior to each class.

Final Exam

The class will have a final exam on May 8. The exam will be "take home" and must be turned in by 12:00 noon the following day. You should write your exams on the computer and e-mail them to me.

Final Paper

You will write a 15 page (double-spaced) critical paper on a topic of your choice to be turned in at the end of the term.

Grades

Daily assignments (Responses to thought questions and student questions) – 30%
Final exam – 30%
Final paper – 30%
In-class participation – 10%

Schedule

Jan. 24: Overview and organization
Jan. 31: Visual coding and overview of visual system
Reading: Bruce, Green, and Georgeson, Chs. 1-3
Feb. 7: Perceptual organization I: overview
Reading: Bruce, Green, and Georgeson, Ch. 5;
Nakayama and Shimojo (1992), "Experiencing and perceiving visual surfaces," Science, 257(5075), 1357-1363.
Feb. 14: Perceptual organization II: contours
Reading: Hess, R. and Field, D. (1999) "Integration of contours: new insights," Trends in Cognitive Science, 480 – 486;
Geisler, et. al. (2001) Edge co-occurrence in natural images predicts contour grouping performance, Vision Research, 41(6), 711 – 724;
Bakin, Jonathan, S., Nakayama, K. and Gilbert, C. D. (2000) Visual responses in monkey areas V1 and V2 to three-dimensional surface configurations, J. Neuroscience, 20(21), 8188-98.
Feb. 21: Stereopsis
Reading: Bruce, Green and Georgeson: 137 – 154, 234 – 235;
Howard, I. P. and Rogers, B. J. (1995) Binocular Vision and Stereopsis, Oxford U. Press, pp. 132 – 141.;
Ozawha, I., DeAngelis, G. and Freeman, R. (1990) "Stereoscopic depth discrimination in the visual cortex: neurons ideally suited as disparity detectors," Science, 249 (4972) 1037 – 1041.
Feb. 28: Monocular cues to depth, cue integration
Reading: Schiffman, Sensation and Perception: an integrated Approach, 338 – 354;
Knill, D. C. (1998) Discrimination of planar surface slant from texture: human and ideal observers compared," Vision Research, 38(11), 1683 - 1711;
Knill, D. C. and Saunders, J. (2003) "Do humans optimally integrate stereo and texture information for judgments of surface slant," Vision Research 43(24), 2539 – 58.
Mar. 7: Multi-sensory integration
Reading: TBD
Mar. 21: Object recognition
Reading: Biederman, I. (1987) Recognition-by-components: A theory of human image understanding, Psychological Review, 94(2), 115-147;
Tarr, M. T., Williams, P., Hayward, W. G. and Gauthier, I. (1998) Three-dimensional object recognition is viewpoint dependent, Nature, 1(4), 275 – 277.;
Reisenhuber, M. and Poggio, T. (1999) hierarchical models of object recognition in cortex, Nature Neuroscience, 2(11), 1019 – 1025.
Mar. 28: Face recognition
Reading: Leopold, D. A., O'toole, A. J., Vetter, T. and Blanz, V. (2001) Prototype-referenced shape encoding revealed by higher-level aftereffects, Nature Neuroscience, 4(1), 89-94;
Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J. and Chun, M. (1997) The fusiform face area: A module in Human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception, J. Neuroscience 17(11), 4302-4311;
Gauthier, I. and Tarr, M. (1999) Activation of the middle fusiform "face area" increases with expertise in recognizing novel objects, Nature Neuroscience 2(6), 568 – 573;
Kanwisher N (2000) Domain specificity in face perception, Nature Neuroscience, 3(8), 759 – 763.
Apr. 4: Bayesian models of perception
Reading: Knill, D. C. and Kersten, D. (1996) Perception as Bayesian Inference, Chapter 1;
Kersten, D., Mamassian, P., & Yuille, A. (2004). Object perception as Bayesian Inference. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 271-304.
Apr. 11: Attention (Daphne Bavelier)
Reading: TBD
Apr. 18: Perceptual learning
Reading: TBD
Apr. 25: Visual control of action I
Reading: TBD
May 1: Visual control of hand movements
Reading: Goodale, M. A, et. al. (1994) Separate neural pathways for the visual analysis of object shape in perception and prehension, Current Biology, 4(7), 604 – 610;
Goodale, M. A., et. al. (1994) The nature and limits of orientation and pattern processing supporting visuomotor control in a visual form agnosic, J. Cog. Neuroscience, 6(1), 46-56;
Harris, C. M. and Wolpert, D. (1997) Signal-dependent noise determines motor planning, Nature, 394(20), 780-784;
Desmurget M, and Grafton, S (2000) Forward modeling allows feedback control for fast reaching movements, Trends in Cog. Sci., 4(11), 423 – 431.
May 8: Vision in natural tasks
Reading: TBD

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